


arashi

by Lire_Casander



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Alternating, Sharing a Bed, Storms, cosmic love exchange 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 15:10:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20229913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: a tale in five acts about michael and alex and storms, because it always rains when they have to talk





	arashi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [manesalex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manesalex/gifts).

> Title is Japanese for _storm_.
> 
> Beta'ed by the lovely and amazingly talented [estel_willow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow), without whom this wouldn't make any sense.
> 
> My dear Molly, it’s been a pleasure to create this little, tiny bit of universe for you. From the beginning I knew what I wanted to do, because you’ve been so helpful answering my questions even when they sounded weird and too vague, and you’ve given me enough inspiration to last me an eternity. You’re always so nice to everyone, and you’ve always treated me with so much love whenever we’ve interacted, that I wanted to pay you back with a bit of fluff, even if it turned out being a lot more angstier than expected. 
> 
> You asked for Michael & Alex working through their issues, you hinted at them sharing a bed as one of your favorite tropes, and you specifically requested no love triangle. And then you gave me some amazing song recs which I have managed to fit together in a short playlist that can be seen as the soundtrack of this fic. Please find the playlist following [this link](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4UtmbDoEKlmCFDdQyvVfww).
> 
> I hope you really really enjoy reading this at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it, because keeping you in mind helped a lot and served as inspiration, just as you are inspirational for many people.

The day Jesse Manes is buried, laid to rest on holy ground, it's pouring. 

Alex feels the humidity in the air biting at his stump. His leg’s aching sharply, stinging and crying out for some relief as he shifts his weight from right to left. It doesn’t do much to relieve the pressure he can already feel building up against his prosthetic. It’s better than nothing, though. He holds a black umbrella over his head, his grip on the handle’s too tight, and his knuckles are white with the effort of grabbing the edges of his world in one small last grasp of reality. Alex isn't comfortable under the rain, his dress shoes are sinking in the mud, his black suit is soaked with the drops of rain the wind throws recklessly against his frame. He tugs at his black tie with his free hand, still not looking up from the closed casket that's about to be lowered into the hole in front of him. 

He can't peel his eyes away from the wooden structure, hardly able to believe that he’s finally free of the monster who haunted his childhood. He knows that, if he dares to look around, he'll be met with the steel gaze of his brothers; the cold steel of Harlan's brown eyes, the void in Hunter's wandering gaze, the sheer hatred in Flint's stare. His older brothers each have reasons of their own to stand, unmoving, under the storm as their father's corpse is set to rot six feet under ground. Alex knows his reasons, and can only guess about theirs, but he's sure the only feeling he shares with his brothers today is grief, albeit for different reasons. 

Alex is grieving his lost childhood. He’s heartbroken for the boy who was beaten for reasons he didn't understand until he was much older. He’s sad for the teenager who once dreamt of running away. He wants to weep for the man he could have been, but years of military training and living under the harsh rule of Jesse Manes prevents him from shedding tears in public. 

He doesn't want anyone to mistake his grief for the life he could have had for sorrow for the death of his father. Maybe. Just maybe.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Alex hears once again, and he’s lost count of how many people have said that to him in the last five minutes. He’s shaking hands with wellwishers, giving sad smiles to the people who’ve come to pay their respects to the offspring of Jesse Manes. His fingers ache from the effort, the umbrella wobbles over his head precariously with each movement. He endures it for the longest time, until he's met face to face by Kyle Valenti, soaked to the bone even though he has his own umbrella. But the wind cares not for their flimsy shields, pelting them with horizontal rain. 

"Alex," he says, low and dark and full of regret. "How are you feeling?" 

Alex is thankful that his friend isn't offering the same polite words he's been hearing for the past twenty minutes. He shakes his head; he can't lie to Kyle, not after everything, but he can't show his true colors in such a public place either. "I'm... coping." 

"Liz would have wanted to come," Kyle informs him. "But last night was really hard on her, and I-I thought it’d be best if she stayed home today." 

Alex nods in understanding. The past few months have been hard on everyone, and Liz has been overexerting herself to bring Max back from the dead. Her coping mechanisms were as healthy as Alex's, and Kyle’s been checking on her daily to make sure she wasn't killing herself in the process. No matter how hard they try, neither of them could stop her nightmares, erase the sharp pain of her loss whenever they’re reminded that they’re no closer to a solution for Max. 

The death of the only person holding all the information about aliens has been a turning point for them all.

"I'll make sure to visit her tomorrow," Alex promises. "I'll bring her some bagels, see if she wants to at least try one." He’s just as worried as Kyle is that Liz hasn't been feeding herself properly; they’ve both taken upon themselves to watch over her health as she cranks out one failed serum after another. 

"I haven't come alone, though," Kyle whispers, gesturing at his back with a loose motion of his head. "He didn't know whether he'd be welcome, but I told him you'd be glad to have him here."

Alex follows Kyle's movement to see a figure standing by the edge of the cemetery walls, hands awkwardly in his pockets, cowboy hat shadowing half his face, braving the bad weather as the rain drenches his ratty white sweater, no umbrella to help him weather the storm. He sighs. 

He hasn't talked to Michael Guerin since coming back, and yet he'd expected him to show up, if only to make sure the monster isn't rising up again. 

"It's okay," he reassures Kyle. "Thanks." He isn't really ready for an encounter of any class with the man who broke his heart and mended it only to wreck him all over again, but he knows the time is right for them to bid farewell to the worst nightmare of their lives, together. He is vaguely aware that his brothers call out to him to stop hogging down the line of well wishers, shaking him out of his thoughts. "I'll see you later," he tells Kyle softly. "I’ll give you a heads up when I get to Liz's, if you wanna come with?" 

"Yeah, man, that’d be great," Kyle accepts eagerly. He nods to Alex before moving towards Flint, who's the next in the line, and gives him his condolences in his most professional and detached Doctor voice. Alex keeps shaking hands and accepting empty words as he replays the last time Kyle and Flint met, and how outrageous it became when Flint fled Caulfield, not before warning them that the site would blow up in ten minutes. All things considered, he thinks it a win when Kyle moves forward from Flint to Hunter, and then to Harlan, before making his way out of the cemetery. 

“The reception starts in half an hour,” Harlan announces when the groups have dissolved and there are only the four of them left. Alex looks over at the cemetery walls – Guerin is nowhere to be found. “Do you need a ride back?”

“No, thanks,” Alex declines, politely. “I drove myself here. I’ll be there.”

“Don’t be late,” Hunter warns. “If you are, people are gonna talk more than they already do.” The look Hunter gives Alex is so reminiscent of the one he would get from his father whenever he talked about Alex’s _perversions_ that he feels something in him snap.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Alex snarls, anger and deception bubbling up inside of him. “None you want to be reminded that little Alex is the shame of the family.”

“He didn’t mean it like-” Harlan tries to explain, to kill the sudden rage that’s building up between the Manes brothers – Hunter and Flint on one side, Alex on the other, the three of them staring ahead ready to hit forward.

“I know what he meant,” Alex finally relents. He lets his fist loosen by his sides, taking in a deep breath to steady himself. “On second thoughts, I don’t think I’ll be at the reception. You’ll do better without me.”

“He would have wanted you there,” Harlan attempts to reason, only to be met with Alex’s disbelieving gaze.

“_He_ would have wanted me _dead_,” Alex finally spits, after a tense moment where none of his brothers look like they know what his reaction might be. “No need for you to put up with me. Don’t try to stay in touch,” he barks as he turns around and walks away, limping as he strides down the mudded path.

When he reaches his car, he unlocks it and climbs inside, throwing the umbrella over the passenger seat unceremoniously, but he doesn’t start the engine. He takes a moment to breathe, hands on the wheel, gripping at the leather as his feet try to find balance on the smooth floor of the footwell. He resists the temptation to lean in and rest his forehead against the wheel, instead of looking ahead as the raindrops splash against the glass, staining it with imperfect wet circles. He sighs, counting to one hundred and back to zero until he feels calm enough and he’s seen his brothers’ cars leave the cemetery without as much as a honk his way.

He feels his resolve and strength leaving him in waves, his fingers trembling against the leather. He wishes he could close his eyes, even if only for a brief moment, and sleep, but he knows what comes when he drifts away – images tangling together in a net that traps him in fear and guilt and hell. He can't afford to sleep, but he knows he won't last long without. 

A knock on the window startles him. He rolls it down carefully; even if the rain has slowed down there’s still the awful wind whistling through the trees. “Guerin?” he asks, confused, as he stares up at the face that stars in most of his dreams – be them nightmares or memories. “What are you doing here?”

“Thought you’d seen me before,” Guerin replies shyly, gaze closed off. “I just-I don’t know.”

“I saw you,” Alex clarifies, shaking his head. “I thought you’d left.” They stare at each other for the longest moment before Alex realizes Guerin is soaked to the bone, having nothing against the rain and the wind other than his black cowboy hat. “Hop in,” he signals to the passenger seat. “I’ll give you a ride.”

“Don’t need to,” Guerin frowns, but he moves around the car, jumping to avoid the puddles pooling beneath the tires. “How did you know I needed a ride?” he asks, opening the door and jumping into the seat, carefully avoiding the umbrella, splashing little drops everywhere.

“Kyle told me you came with him. I thought you’d left with him too,” Alex tells him. “But Kyle’s already gone, so...” He shrugs, igniting the engine and shifting to first gear. “Where to?” he asks, because he’s not sure if Guerin would want him to drive to the Airstream, to Isobel’s or to Maria’s. Alex doesn’t really know where Guerin is staying these days.

“Actually, I thought we could maybe-hang out for a bit? Together? Thought you might need a shoulder to lean on or a listening ear or-something?” Guerin suggests with a small voice. “I overheard your, uh, conversation with your brothers.”

Alex sighs, turning the wheel on the curve by the end of the cemetery path, plunging the car into the main road, the windshield wiper in full range as the rain hits harder the faster they get. “I guess you can call it a conversation.”

“Not everything’s a war these days, Alex,” Guerin states, words reminiscent of those from Kyle from what feels so long ago, healed hand on top of the dashboard, closer to the gearshift than Alex would have liked. 

“What are you doing here, Guerin?” Alex says viciously, head snapping from the road briefly to cast a glance to Guerin’s unmarked skin. When he receives nothing but silence and a confused look his way, Alex presses on. “Well? There’s nothing reminding you of the bad days, is there? No broken bones, the monster’s dead. I’m the only one who’s left broken and incomplete. What would you want with me?”

Guerin looks impossibly sad while Alex has to glue his gaze back on the road. For a long while neither of them says a thing; Alex navigates them through town and forward, passing by the Pony and Sanders’ and the Spanish style house Isobel Evans lives now in after having sold the one she shared with Noah. Under Guerin’s inquisitive gaze, Alex takes them to the cabin, and only when he pulls up next to the graveled path leading up to his house does he dare to speak softly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean-”

“No offense taken,” Guerin reaches out and takes Alex’s hand from the gearshift and between his palms. He starts massaging the knuckles, tense in knots under his touch, and Alex can’t help the sigh that escapes his throat, loud enough for Guerin to catch it. “We need to talk,” he says warmly. “But first, we have to get out of the car and into the house. Afterwards, we’ll see.”

Alex feels suddenly too tired to even try to nod in agreement. His limbs feel too heavy to maneuver, his prosthetic grunting beneath the sock that keeps it joined to the stump without cutting into skin. “I don’t think I can move,” he confesses, tears welling up in his eyes. He doesn’t know where the exhaustion and the sudden sadness are coming from; he just knows he’s about to burst if he doesn’t close his eyes and let it all spill from him. He attempts to open the door, fumbling with the handle as his hands tremble against the metal. Alex feels the lock switch open and he knows it’s Guerin’s doing. 

“Easy there,” Guerin is right outside when Alex stumbles out of the car. He’s seemingly lost track of a few movements because he doesn’t recall having registered Guerin even shifting in his seat. But he doesn’t complain as he falls right into his arms, warmth and calmness engulfing him as Guerin helps him up the path, climbing the steps to the deck. He unlocks the door with his mind before Alex can find his keys in his pocket, and gently ushers him in. Belatedly, Alex realizes they have forgotten the umbrella inside the car, and therefore there are two sets of footprints mudding his hall, and two wet men dripping off on the wooden floor. “Lemme help you, Private.”

“Haven’t been in the army ever,” Alex protests faintly. “Been out of the Air Force for six weeks now.”

“I know,” Guerin says as he gently pushes Alex further into his own house, guiding him through to the bedroom. Alex doesn’t understand how Guerin can know where the bedroom is without having ever set foot in the cabin, but he can’t voice his doubts because all of a sudden he feels like he can’t work his jaw. His feet are all but dragging across the floorboards as Guerin helps him through the narrow corridor and opens the door to his tidy bedroom with his telekinesis. Alex has never been happier to be a neat freak until now – he would have never forgiven himself if he’d allowed Guerin _of all people_ see his bed unmade and his papers scattered over every available flat surface.

That has been the state of his house for the few weeks before everything exploded, while he fought to keep a steady grip on his reality as he was outrun by his father in a race that could only have one winner. In the end, he’s the last one standing, but even that victory has tasted sour in his mouth, as he’s had to erase all tracks of their confrontation so none of his brothers could ever pinpoint that his father’s death has been anything but accidental. His memories from the first few days after escaping are hazy and jumbled together, nothing but nonsensical heaps of disconnected incidents. Absentmindedly, he recounts the number of sleepless nights he’s pulled out through the past seventeen weeks, and he falters as he realizes he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep since Max Evans killed Noah.

Guerin helps him sit on the bed when Alex feels like his body isn’t supporting him anymore. He falls in a heap, shivering with a cold that has seeped into him made of rain and memories. Guerin waits for a heartbeat before kneeling in front of him and tugging at the legs of his trousers. “I know it’s not the best moment to point it out but,” he laughs softly, “I may need you to stand up for a second if you want me to take your prosthetic off.”

“I can do it myself,” Alex replies, suddenly acutely self-aware and without an ounce of understanding of how the situation has evolved from them staring into each other’s eyes from afar at the cemetery to Guerin undressing him so carefully it could almost be mistaken for _love_. And Alex knows a lot about love – or the lack thereof, really – so this cannot be _it_. Michael might have loved him, past tense, but now he’s moved on with Maria and Alex should let him go so his best friend can have her boyfriend back for the night.

“I can let you _try_,” Guerin retaliates, an amused undertone in his voice. “But I bet you’ll drop to the ground, you’re so exhausted.”

"'m not," Alex mumbles, fidgeting with the hem of his suit trousers. He fails to unbutton them the three times he tries, finally giving up and allowing Michael to access his waistband and undo the offending button. "Better." 

"I'm not gonna ask how long since you last actually slept," Guerin promises as he eases the trousers down Alex's thighs as he telekinetically holds Alex steady, hovering three inches above the mattress. "It's obvious that you really haven't." 

"You don't look better yourself," Alex points out, head clearing briefly as he stares at Guerin's demeanor, hunched over the bed trying to shy his face away from Alex so he can't see the shadows underneath those expressive hazel eyes. 

"We’re not talking about me," Guerin mutters as he pushes Alex out of his jacket and slides the shirt off his shoulder. "Lie down, get comfortable. I'll take your prosthetic off." 

Alex realizes then that he's stripped down to his boxer briefs and his undershirt, purple bruises on his arms yellowing and fading; Guerins even taken his socks off, leaving Alex barefoot. He’s left wondering how it’s possible that he’s disassociated so strongly that he’s got no recollection of Guerin fumbling with his clothes to undress him. 

"Okay," he says, obliging by sliding back on the mattress, propped up on his elbows as he presses himself back against the pillows. Guerin bites his lower lip, assessing the situation before making a move – always studying each and every outcome like the engineer he should have become. 

Alex holds his breath as Guerin leans forward, almost reverently brushing his fingertips on the smooth and cool surface of the metallic substitute for the limb he lost to the sands of a distant, hostile desert. He hears more than sees, given the weird angle they've ended up tangled in, the pin releasing. He feels the skin smoothing under expert hands, sweat gliding underneath the surface where stump meets metal. In a swift movement the prosthetic is off, and Guerin is plucking at the hem of the sock protecting the swollen scar tissue that made him the hero everyone's been avoiding as of late. 

Maybe he deserves the isolation. 

"No one deserves to be left alone," Guerin says, caressing the scars, helping Alex realize that he's spoken out loud. "I'm sorry. I know I haven’t been the kind of friend you deserve. None of us has been, really." 

"Too busy breaking my heart," comes out of his mouth before Alex can help it, and if he hadn't been aware of the lack of alcohol in his veins, he would have thought himself wasted. He's way more exhausted that he thought he was. 

"I already apologized for that," Guerin reminds him, nudging his knee to bend and helping him getting even more comfortable on the soft mattress. "I'll never apologize for trying to be happy, though." 

"All lies," Alex mumbles. Guerin stands up and moves around the bed until he's resting his forehead against the wooden headboard, the fingers on his right hand petting ever so slightly Alex's longish hair. He ponders whether or not to ask Guerin about the lack of absentminded use of his healed hand, but maybe he still has to get used to relying on a limb that they all have considered residual for him too. "You could never be happy with her. Cosmic, remember?" 

"You're about to drop dead," Guerin chuckles. Alex doesn't see the fun in his own words, but Guerin quickly sobers up. "I said I was trying to, not that I was." 

"Better," Alex concedes, eyes drooping as he feels his consciousness slip away. He fights against slumber, not wanting this moment to end – this dream where Guerin is taking care of him. "Stay?" he all but begs.

Guerin drops a kiss on his hairline, and Alex can feel the smile carving into his skin as Guerin promises in sotto voce, "Always." At that, Alex allows himself to drift off, protected by Guerin's soft touches and whispered nonsense, a warmth from outside this world engulfing him for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. 

When he opens his eyes again, the sun is fighting its way up in the sky, gifting the Earth with a display of oranges and reds and yellows staining the horizon in sight with a pretty shade of color. He feels rested, head pounding a bit but as he remembers the tension from the day before – the funeral, the argument with his brothers, Guerin taking care of him – he understands that a headache is the downside of a stressful day. He wants to thank Guerin for being there, even after everything, even after the shouting matches and the grief. Alex turns to his left on the bed, but finds a void. Frowning, he looks around the bedroom, but there's no sign that Guerin has ever been there. 

If he squints, he can make out the silhouette of a cowboy hat perched on one of the chairs in the room, lazily swaying with the wind coming in from the open window. Alex bites the inside of his cheek, stupid, emotional tears threatening to well up in his eyes. Guerin's spent the night looking over him, probably from the chair he's now glaring at. 

Guerin has spent the night, only to leave him before sunrise, leaving behind his precious hat. The tears finally roll down his cheeks, unleashed from his eyelashes. 

He's completely alone.

> "There's another facility," it's the first thing that comes out of Alex's mouth as he walks up to Michael, who's sitting outside the Airstream with his third beer of the morning.
> 
> "Good morning, Guerin. It's been a long time, Guerin. How have you been, Guerin?" he replies, not even looking up from the bottle in his hand.
> 
> "You know I'm all for niceties, but there's no time," is the icy answer he gets from the Airman. Michael's head shoots up at his words. "There's another place where they might be holding more aliens captive."
> 
> "Why should I care?" Michael retaliates, purposefully avoiding the dark eyes scanning his face. "Last one, I managed to blow up."
> 
> "You know that's not true, Guerin," Alex sighs, sounding as defeated as he looks like under the cloudy skies over them. He doesn't seem to have slept much since the last time Michael saw him, roughly six or seven hours after finding out about Max.
> 
> The thought of his brother, currently idling away in a pod in the turquoise mines, is enough to send an unpleasant guilty shiver up his spine. Michael takes a swig of his beer, attempting a nonchalance that he hasn't felt in a long time.
> 
> "What do you want from me, Alex?" he finally says. He still has to look Alex in the eye.
> 
> "I'm going up to investigate," Alex explains. "I thought you'd be interested in coming with, we could find answers to help Max."
> 
> Michael sighs. Rationally, he knows that a new facility under Project Shepherd orders is likely to hold more of his kind, isolated and tortured. Objectively, he knows Alex can't burst into it without alien backup, or any backup given the outcome of their last adventure. It could be dangerous, it could turn out as explosive and fiery as the last one.
> 
> If anything, Michael isn't known for being either rational or objective.
> 
> "Ask Valenti," Michael suggests. He stills has to meet Alex's gaze. His wanders from the lawn chairs to the dead fire pit in front of him, to the bottle in his hands and the patch of mud where he's currently digging the tip of his boots. "Pretty sure the Doc will drop everything to be at your beck and call."
> 
> "I knew I shouldn't have come here," Alex laments. Michael can hear the telltale of heels scratching the filthy ground at the junkyard. The noise stops a few seconds after, and Alex's voice carries through the air, "You're being so selfish, you know?"
> 
> "I've lost my mother _and_ my brother in two consecutive days, and it's _me_ who's being selfish?" he screeches, this time allowing his gaze to roam over Alex's features. There's a crease on his forehead where his brows knit together, and a sad rictus on his mouth. "That's rich, even from you. Go to Valenti, Alex, and leave me alone."
> 
> "Alone with your alcohol, you mean," Alex bites back. Michael has forgotten the snarl and bicker that he can muster; it's not nice to be on the receiving end of it. "What are you doing with your life, Guerin? Don't think I don't know you're not really working with Liz to find a fix for Max. You choosing Maria over whatever cosmic _thing_ we had doesn't allow you to kick _me_ out of my friends lives."
> 
> "Cosmic, huh?" Michael goes for sarcasm instead of cowering in his corner. He's not one to back down from a challenge, and Alex's words are nothing but a dare.
> 
> "Your words, not mine," Alex shrugs. He's still halfway between his car and the Airstream, as though he can't decide whether to flee or to fight.
> 
> "It wasn't _me_ who ended things between us the moment being an alien became a problem, Alex," Michael points out, remarking his words with a tilt of his beer. He resists the urge to sip from it.
> 
> "It wasn't the alien part of that conversation that scared me," Alex confesses. Michael waits a bit for him to elaborate further, but Alex remains silent and Michel finally finishes his beer when he realizes there's not going to be anymore to share.
> 
> “I’ll need to warn Isobel that I’m leaving for a while,” Michael finally relents, leaving the now empty bottle on the ground. From the very beginning of their interaction, he’s known he would never be able to deny Alex anything. If he asked for his life, Michael would lay it down for him. “She gets worried, after everything.”
> 
> “So you’re coming,” and it isn’t even a question. Michael finally looks Alex in the eye, after avoiding it for the whole of their conversation, and he only finds sadness and pity. “I’ll come back in the morning,” Alex informs him, a smoothness in his words that wasn’t present before. “It’s somewhere over the Texas border, so you may want to tell Isobel you’ll be gone overnight.”
> 
> “Okay,” he replies softly. He doesn’t know what else to say as Alex starts to walk away again, one foot in front of the other, until he reaches his car again. 
> 
> “And, Guerin? Please try to be sober by tomorrow.”
> 
> It’s raining cats and dogs when Alex pulls into the junkyard the following morning, but Michael is ready, one frayed duffel bag dangling from his shoulder as he waits under the shelter that his workplace offers him from the worst storm Roswell has suffered ever since the night Max killed Noah. Michael jumps into the car, leaving everything soaked as he arranges his seating and belts himself securely into the passenger seat. He grunts a greeting that is met with a small smile from Alex and, just like that, their journey begins.
> 
> They don’t talk much during the roadtrip, Alex driving while Michael wonders what the hell he’s doing in a car with the love of his life when they’re not even on _true_ speaking terms.They have been playing this game for several weeks now, ever since Max ended up in that pod after resurrecting Rosa Ortecho; everyone has been busy reorganizing their lives around the fact that the dead could walk again, and Michael has been very preoccupied with keeping Maria in the dark about everything. Michael huffs slightly, his face against the window of the car. _That_ had proved to be the most difficult achievement to make – mainly because Maria had thrown him out the moment she’d realized that his hand hadn’t been healed by work and grace of the Holy Spirit.
> 
> Without the promise of easy that Maria had been, without the support of Isobel’s mind showing him the way, Michael has been going down into a spiral of self-loathing and hatred that always ends up with him in the same place – in front of his Airstream, drunk on acetone and whiskey, unable to even walk two steps to his bed. He doesn’t even have Max anymore to throw him into the drunk tank and lecture him about how he’s wasting away his life in iterations of three. He lets out a laugh that’s intended to be a relief but comes out strangled and painful.
> 
> “What’s so funny?” Alex finally asks, eyes never leaving the road.
> 
> “You, me, this car,” Michael chuckles. “For weeks you’ve been avoiding me and now you need me for this adventure. And you haven’t even asked Valenti to come with us. I’m touched.”
> 
> “Kyle’s hiding,” Alex explains, knuckles white against the dark leather of the steering wheel. “My father tried to kill him.”
> 
> Michael yelps, turning his head to look at Alex so fast that his brain swims awkwardly inside his skull. “What?”
> 
> “Don’t play dumb, Guerin. We both know my father is completely capable of killing someone.”
> 
> “Well, it’s not like daddy dearest to let it slip by him _twice_,” Michael muses. “I take it Valenti escaped?”
> 
> Alex seems to hesitate for a second. Michael has the feeling that there’s more to the situation than what he’s about to be told, if Alex’s body language is any indication, but then again he has never been good at reading Alex further than when he’s attempting at subtle flirting. “Kyle put my father into a coma,” he finally whispers. “But then everything exploded and Rosa was back and Max wasn’t, and somehow in that ruckus, my father woke up and escaped. Kyle’s trying to hide from him. He’s scared. We both are.”
> 
> Michael understands their feelings completely. It’s something he hasn’t grown out of in the decade since he earned himself a broken hand for loving Alex Manes with everything he had. He’s still carrying the scars from that day in his heart, and no healing from Max can ever erase that pain etched in the seams of his soul. He tries and fails to say something, _anything_, but he falls short of words and ends up silent for the remainder.
> 
> He doesn’t even say anything when Alex stops the car near the place they’re looking for and commands him out of it for a tour around the facility’s perimeter to see how accessible it can be. Alex has his tracking devices working to find any traces of body heat, and when he’s satisfied with the data he’s recovered, he signals for Michael to follow him and they both hop back into the car. “Now where to?” he asks because he’s done nothing but sit around and watch Alex’s back while the Airman scanned the area, and he still has no idea about why he’s really in Texas. 
> 
> “We find a nice cheap motel, we pay in cash, and we get ready for tomorrow,” Alex recounts as though he’s citing the grocery list. “From what I’ve gathered, there’s no one in there, not even humans. It could just be abandoned, but we’ll know for sure tomorrow. It’s Project Shepherd we’re talking about.”
> 
> Michael hums in agreement. Jesse Manes always seems to have one ace up his sleeve, but this time they will manage to beat him at his own game. “What do you expect to find there, if it’s abandoned?” he asks, a legitimate question because there might be nothing to find.
> 
> “Archives?” Alex shakes his head as he veers toward one motel by the end of the road they’re now riding in. “I don’t know. I’m just hoping we’ll find something in their databases, if they haven’t erased everything. Something that will help get Max back. It’s killing Liz.”
> 
> Michael doesn’t have time to formulate a reply since Alex is already stopping in the parking lot, eyeing outside the car as fat drops of rain start to fall from the sky. “Is it a theme or something?” he complains. “It hasn’t stopped raining since Noah died.”
> 
> “Maybe Max unleashed the god of storms,” Michael jokes feebly as he gets out of the car and into the pouring rain without any armour than his cowboy hat he has refused to leave behind in the trailer.
> 
> The motel clerk isn’t really helpful when they set foot inside the hall, both drenched to their bones. He just types carelessly into his keyboard and informs them, with such boredom in his voice that it almost makes Michael sleepy, that they only have one room available. One bed, in fact. Apparently they’re full due to the ongoing storms not allowing tourists to leave when they want to. “And that’s great for business,” he says, not an ounce of cheerfulness in his words.
> 
> Alex grabs the key to the room and starts walking away, shaking his head as Michael follows in his steps, wondering how on earth they can make it work. There’s no way he’s sleeping in the car, not with the raging rain outside, but maybe he can take the floor or the bathtub. God knows it wouldn’t be the first time, but it’s been over ten years since the last time he’s got to sleep on a dirty floor, bruised and battered – every single time he’s been knocked out in the Pony, he’s managed to get up and drag his drunk and sorry ass to his home.
> 
> He starts saying "I’ll sleep in the tub," at the same time that Alex quips, "I'll take the floor." They look at each other for a long second before dissolving in a fit of giggles.
> 
> "I won't let you sleep on the floor," Michael states when he sobers up. "It's just not happening." 
> 
> "The bed is big enough," Alex suggests. "You’re too old for the bathtub." 
> 
> "Are you sure?" Michael asks softly, not meeting Alex’s eyes. "I can go sleep in the car." 
> 
> "It's freezing and raining. Don't be a kid, Guerin. We're both adults. We can share." 
> 
> Michael wants to point out that they haven't been able to share a bed _ever_, but he bites his tongue. Instead, he nods slowly and flees to the tiny bathroom adjacent, where he finds out there wouldn't have been any option to sleep in the bathtub – there's a small shower in a corner next to the sink. He swallows a chuckle and looks at his reflection on the mirror. What he sees shakes him to the core. 
> 
> He’s got dark bags under his eyes from weeks of sleepless nights. His cheeks are pale and emaciated, and his curls look like a cow licked at his head. Michael knows he's been overexerting himself in his need to bring Max back, even if the most he's done has been drinking himself into oblivion at the Pony when Maria lifted her ban on him after their breakup. His hands grasp the sink, his nails scratching the porcelain as he studies his own image. 
> 
> "You okay in there?" Alex calls through the closed door. 
> 
> "Yeah, coming out." 
> 
> And he does, swagger in place when he opens the door to face Alex standing in the middle of the room, stripped off his sweater and his jeans. Michael can’t help the journey his eyes make from the hairline of those dark locks to the toes of the prosthetic, which always manage to surprise him with its realism despite being carbon fiber and metal. He smirks at Alex, who rolls his eyes and saunters into the bathroom in just his boxers. Somehow, not being completely naked but still together in the same motel room has Michael panting at the prospect of spending the night in the same bed as Alex. 
> 
> When Alex comes back into the room, Michael has discarded his jeans and his ratty shirt, and is already on the bed, claiming a small side of the mattress as he watches Alex hesitating briefly before reaching the bed and sitting on it, back to Michael, the mattress sinking slightly under his weight. "What are the plans for tomorrow?" he asks when Alex doesn't seem to move. "Do we bust in?" 
> 
> "Nah," Alex replies, finally turning around, swinging his legs on the bed and resting his back on the headboard. "I was thinking you could open the door, keep the violence to a minimum." 
> 
> "So that's why you wanted me here," Michael jokes. "You wanted me for my brains." 
> 
> "No, Guerin," Alex deadpans, locking eyes with him. "I want you for your body, too." 
> 
> The blush spreading through his body is something Michael can’t fight. He stares agape at Alex as the airman flops down on his side and drags the cover up to his chin. Michael blinks a few times, not knowing what to do or if he's reading the signals the way they should be read. _Fuck it_, he thinks, and he slips under the cover without waiting any longer. 
> 
> Alex has his back to him, but Michael can feel the tension in his shoulders, the hairs of his nape on edge. Michael itches to touch, but he talks himself down for several minutes because they came here for answers, and whatever game they're playing is only going to bring more trouble. He reaches out, fingers hovering mere inches from Alex's skin, doubt and guilt present in his mind. He retreats his hand twice before manning up and finally landing his hand slowly on Alex’s shoulder.
> 
> The tension dissolves like magic under his touch, and he finds himself relaxing at last, as though he has been on edge for his whole life, forever waiting for the small glimpse of happiness he feels surging through him as Alex snuggles closer. Michael drapes his arm around Alex’s waist, skin on skin, after his fingers have traveled all the way from that shoulder through the patch of skin that joins the neck and the arm, until they rest hesitantly over Alex’s stomach. There's a fluttery feeling in his belly as he waits for Alex to reject him. 
> 
> When Alex's hand covers his, warmth and nervousness and giddiness explode inside Michael’s heart.

It takes him a long time to calm down enough to begin thinking properly once again. He chides himself, for he knows a trained airman shouldn’t have a breakdown over something as petty as being left behind, but that’s exactly the problem he’s been trying to fix all this time – Alex Manes has abandonment issues. It’s taken him over a decade to acknowledge the problem, but he’s nowhere near a solution, and he’s afraid he won’t ever be able to find one.

Guerin leaving him in the middle of the night only feeds his monsters.

He tries some breathing techniques he learned at therapy when he had to adjust to his new reality, and when he deems himself ready to face the day he casts a look around searching for his prosthetic. He finds it carefully propped against the side of his night table, the latch closed as to prevent it from deforming, a clean sock on top of it. Briefly, Alex wonders if Guerin has thrown the other sock into the laundry basket. He shivers at the memory of the cowboy, who knew his way around the cabin as though he’d been there several times instead of _never_. With a soft sigh, he reaches around the night table and grabs his prosthetic, the metal biting his fingers with its cold steel as he fumbles with the sock to put it on. He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until he needs three attempts to actually get the latch locked and he can get out of bed. He limps to his closet, rescuing a well-worn Air Force shirt which he tosses over his head without much fanfare, and he picks some sweatpants. He almost crawls back to his bed to sit down and place metal through the legs of the trousers; only when his two feet are back again planted on the floor does Alex dare to stand up again and pull the pants up his thighs until they're resting loosely on his hips. 

Firmly believing he’s all alone in his home, Alex takes his crutch with him when he decides it’s time for breakfast. He finds it next to the spot where the prosthetic had been, elegantly tipping the wall. Alex would have frowned at it, but he’s too busy trying to keep his feelings from flailing around in his mind and in his soul, so he just circles the handle of the crutch with his left hand, ready to face on the morning that has just broken into daylight. He peeks outside the window, blinds half-open allowing some rays to sneak into the main room. It is still a little cloudy outside, the sky mixing the warm colors of sunrise with the gray and white of the lingering storm. Circular marks mar the glass, a constellation of raindrops forming the shape of his broken heart. Alex blinks rapidly, willing back the tears that once again threaten to spill from his eyes. He wonders whether he’s losing his cool in the aftermath of his father’s death, if the monster still holds some power over him, or if it’s the fact that just one night in Guerin’s arms is enough to turn him into an addict, even if all he’s done has been crying over flannel shirts and warm skin.

Alex hesitates at the door jamb leading to the living room. He doesn’t think he’s ready to take on the world yet; he’s anything but a coward, though, so he inhales deeply and sets his right leg forward, one step after another, and before he can register it, he is entering the kitchen, his crutch dragging at his left side, screeching on the tiled floor. Alex allows his gaze to roam around the space, trying to decide whether he’ll go for a full breakfast or just coffee. His eyes linger one second too long on the counter next to the sink, and his heart skips _at least_ four beats.

There’s a steaming cup of coffee waiting below the open window that now shows the wilderness surrounding the cabin – the greener trees after the storm, the savage bushes and the path that leads toward the woods, all damp from the night’s rain. There’s a cool breeze cleansing the air in the kitchen, but Alex’s focus is pinned to the coffee cup, porcelain white and alien colorful, the gleaming iridescence he’s only seen twice before. It isn’t a mug he’s ever noticed before in his cupboards, but in Roswell, in a cabin with a detox bunker below its floors, anything can happen. Anything can be true. 

Alex almost drops his crutch as his heart resumes its beating, thumping hard and quick against his ribcage. 

He grabs the mug and walks decidedly to the front door, noticing for the first time that it’s ajar, the same breeze sweeping inside the living room, brushing some papers that he’s got stacked underneath an ashtray that Jim had left there to rot. The air smells like wet land and spring blooming in his front yard. Alex allows himself a small smile as he tightens his grip on the crutch and uses it for balance. 

The porch ends abruptly in a few steps straight across the floor from him, but it extends in a wooden deck all around the house, connecting the main building with the log cabin. He’s always loved it out there when the days grow longer and the sun sets lazily behind the buildings – he used to wait for the sunset with his guitar, ready to serenade the moon upon its arrival; he used to wait for the darkness to escape his father’s wrath with a little help of Jim Valenti and his escape techniques, hitchhiking a ride in the back of a police car. Alex walks around hesitantly until he reaches the last corner of the porch, the ultimate frontier between what he’s fighting to believe and the truth he’s afraid of facing, his left foot setting a pace that his right foot clearly can’t follow, if the pain coursing through his muscles from his stump to his hip is any indication. He has to stop for a second, collect himself and catch his breath that’s coming out in ragged, hitched huffs. He doesn’t know what he’s going to find once he rounds the last corner of the deck – he knows what he hopes to see, but reality and dreams don’t often coincide. Alex braces himself for a disappointment and walks to the other side.

On one of the two wooden chairs that have forever been outside, facing the wild flora gifting the cabin with the best panoramic, Michael Guerin is holding a guitar in between his hands, placed gently on his lap as he hunches his head and tunes the strings, humming softly to himself. from where Alex stands, he can see Guerin is only wearing the jeans from the day before, shirtless in front of the nature that gives the cabin its own living aura. There are a few picks Alex recognizes as his floating around the cowboy, while Guerin pays no attention to his surroundings. Alex thinks his heart is going to escape his chest and run away, straight into that guitar. He clears his throat, both to give Guerin a warning that he isn’t alone anymore and to calm _himself_ a bit. 

The picks drop to the floor next to the chair where Guerin is still testing the strings.

“I thought you’d left,” he says as nonchalantly as he can muster, limping to the free chair and plopping down onto it gracelessly, hardly avoiding spilling the coffee. He wouldn’t care less, not right now, not when Guerin is looking up at him with those impossible hazel eyes that reflect the irisation of the mug. He needs to ask more, to know _more_, but he doesn’t dare speak any further.

“I promised I’d stay,” Guerin reminds him, holding his gaze for a millisecond before focusing once again in the strings. He tugs and twists his fingers, broken sounds coming out of the guitar as he stops to tighten the tuners. “Now’s perfect,” he mutters when he deems his work done. He hovers his fingers over the frets; Alex can’t peel his eyes off the unmangled back of his left hand, now flexing over the strings as Guerin closes his eyes, poises his stance and strums lightly. Alex has to leave his mug on the arm of his chair, in a precarious balance, before he knocks it over, his own hands itching to play. It’s been a while since he’s allowed himself near a guitar, and even longer since he last enjoyed the sound of music thrumming through his veins. 

“Where did you find it?” Alex asks, because he’s sure that guitar hasn’t been around the cabin. He threw away everything that reminded him of his old days when he came back to Roswell for good, and the past few months have been a whirlwind of adventures that have prevented him from even wondering whether or not he’d like to have music in his house.

“Maria let me keep her, when we split up,” Guerin explains, this time not looking up. Alex wishes he could see the way those eyes cloud at the mention of his best friend turned a stranger so many months ago. The words take a while to sink in, and when they do, Alex can’t help the surprised yelp escaping his lips.

“What do you mean?” he manages to say, voice strained and tiny. He’s been fighting his own wars for so long – he’s even fought for his own _freedom_ – that he’s lost sight of the rest of the world still spinning around him. “You’re not dating Maria anymore?”

“I’m pretty sure that _split up_ is actually code for _not dating someone_, Alex,” Guerin says softly, still not looking at him. “I shouldn’t be surprised you hadn’t noticed, you’ve been a bit busy lately.”

“Excuse me,” Alex bites back sardonically. “But last time you said something was over, it wasn’t really _over_.”

“Says who, Alex?” Guerin finally, _finally_, looks up again, locking eyes with him, an inscrutable depth boring holes in Alex’s soul. “Again, pretty sure that when you said that some things end with a whimper, you weren’t just quoting Eliot.”

And doesn’t that jab hurt him as though he’s been stabbed with a medieval sword. Alex squares his shoulders, his left arm loosely hanging off the arm of the chair he’s sitting in. For a while, he just stares at Guerin as the cowboy simply breaks eye contact and gazes longingly at the wilderness in front of them. “You said Maria let you keep the guitar?” he asks instead, after what feels like a lifetime, after biting his cheek so hard he’s drawn blood. His mouth tastes like iron and regret.

“Said this would be the only girl I’ll ever fall in love with,” Guerin sighs, caressing the neck of the guitar with a firm but soft stroke. “She wasn’t really wrong, Maria.”

“Wasn’t she?” Alex feels stupid for just repeating whatever Guerin says, but he has yet to wrap his head around the fact that Guerin has stayed the night, he hasn’t abandoned Alex, but that they’re also, for once in their lives, relatively on the same page. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to love anyone else anymore, Alex,” Guerin confesses. It’s sweet and almost inaudible, words whispered against the wind that calls for a new storm brewing on the horizon. “I told you once that I never look away.”

“But you did,” Alex accuses. Traitorous tears are starting to well up behind his eyelashes as he closes his eyes. The faint sun rays are being swept away by grey clouds, a mirror of how his soul is spiraling. “You looked away. You looked at _her_.”

“It was you who threw me out,” Guerin shakes his head. He doesn’t even try to put up a fight, and Alex wishes he would, because then they’d engage in something so familiar he could do it with his eyes closed. They’re so used to fighting that Alex doesn’t know where they stand without it. “At that facility. You threw me out and sacrificed yourself. Who looked away then?”

“Don’t you understand that it wasn’t me looking _away_?” Alex cries out, flailing his arms around him and almost knocking the mug that’s still precariously perched on the chair. “If you had stayed then-if they had caught you-I’d’ve lost you forever, Guerin.”

“Maybe it would’ve been for the better, wouldn’t it?” the cowboy says bitterly. He’s almost forgotten he was playing guitar, the instrument idling on his lap as he uses it as anchorage.

“You left me waiting. That morning,” Alex can’t take it anymore, but he doesn’t find strength in his own limbs to get up and walk away from Guerin or to kick him out of his property.

“I’m sorry,” Guerin apologizes. “I’ve told you time and again, I’m sorry for leaving you wondering what would have been. You were brave enough to open up, and I brushed it off as if it was nothing.”

“Why did you do it? It was to punish me? To pay me back?”

“Oh, God, no, Alex,” Guerin exclaims, rubbing a hand over his face. When he shows his features again, there are tears brimming in his eyes too. “I was in love with you, okay? But it always felt like a war, like a wreck, like a fucking crash landing. I was tired of fighting.”

“You _were_ in love with me,” Alex repeats. He shakes his head, but the motion doesn’t bring any order to his crazy thoughts. “Past tense. Now that there’s nothing to remind you of that-that crash landing-you can move on, can’t you? Is that why you stayed? So you could get some closure?”

“You can be so dumb sometimes,” Guerin replies, standing up with the guitar secure in his newly healed grasp. “I don’t really know what I was expecting. Valenti said you were still in shock, that you needed-I dunno, _someone_, but it’s evident that I can’t play nice and try to be your _friend_. This is always going to be a war for you.”

“It isn’t me who’s been using past tense the whole time, Guerin.” Alex wants to stand up as well, to get to the same level as Guerin so he can try and shove him out of his property and out of his life, once and for all. Even if it breaks him beyond repair. But he doesn’t budge.

“Past tense?” Guerin laughs humorlessly. “Wanna know why I’m still here? I stayed because I care about you, Alex. _Present_ tense. That’s what friends do. But it turns out, I can’t be your friend, you know? I can’t be your friend because I’m fucking in love with you, still. _Present_ tense. Is it enough of an excuse for you to walk away, _again_?”

Alex stares at him mutely, mouth open as he fights for air. He can’t hear anything over the thumping of his heart – savage and free and _thunderous_ – and he can’t shake himself into motion. But if he doesn’t say something, do something, Guerin is going to walk away for real this time. And Alex is tired of fleeing when he should be fighting, along with the only person who’s ever felt like home to him in the whole world. So he does the only thing he can think of.

Slowly, he rises to his feet, unsteady and trembling, under Guerin’s unreadable gaze. “Michael,” he begins, low. The mug threatens to shatter under unknown pressure, holding its pieces together by sheer stubbornness. Alex gets a reminder of another moment, almost in another life, _pieces want to be together_, and he wonders, not for the first time, not for the last time surely, whether his life would have been different if he'd have taken the leap of faith his soul had warned him about in Guerin's bunker. 

He has the feeling that he's about to find out, for better or for worse. 

Without warning, the storm breaks above their heads, the wind making the rain hit their bodies as they stand, face to face, on the edge of a deck that feels like the beginning and the end of a world they used to know. Alex wonders if he’ll be brave enough to take that extra step into Guerin’s personal space, now that he’s broken one of the habits from an old life. “Michael,” he calls again, the name rolling off his tongue easily. He doesn’t understand why he hasn’t used it before.

The silence on the other end is unbearable; Guerin is still standing frozen under the rain splashing around their feet, thunder and lightning growling above them. Time stills as they both breathe deeply – in, out, in, out – until in one swift motion, Alex’s world tilts on its axis.

Guerin closes the space between them in one step, confident and decided and bold, and embraces Alex with all he’s got. It feels like the reunion and the drive-in and Caulfield all over again – love and hope and grief laced together with past and future and uncertainty. When Guerin leans in and searches for his lips, Alex willingly tilts his face up and kisses him first, under a rain that cleanses them and lightens their path.

> When he wakes up, it takes Michael a few seconds to center himself. He’s on an unknown bed, somewhere he doesn’t recognize, and it seems he's got a full night’s sleep for the first time since before Max decided to play god. He smiles lazily as he replays the events from the day before – the plans on taking an abandoned facility, the motel room and the only bed, the doubts and the fear, the relief when Alex accepted his touch and welcomed it. 
> 
> It had given him hope, a hope he had lost so long ago, along with the mobility of his left hand and the promise of a future stolen by the monsters who had been dictating his life ever since. 
> 
> Michael moves his arm over the mattress, and frowns. His fingers land on the sheets; they're still warm, so Alex hasn't been gone long. He shoots up on the bed, looking wildly around the room. The bathroom is empty when he gets up to scan the space more closely. Alex is nowhere to be found, and there's a screaming feeling in his gut urging him to get dressed and out. He’s so frantically looking for his things that he doesn’t hear the door opening at his back.
> 
> The sound of a gun cocked at his back when he's doubled over his duffel bag to get a shirt out of it freezes him in place. Already sensing it’s too late to flee without putting up a fight, he lifts his hands up in the air and turns around slowly. He isn’t expecting to meet face to face with a man in a military uniform he doesn’t recognize, but it’s not him who’s holding the gun that’s currently threatening his life.
> 
> It’s Alex.
> 
> Michael knows his face shows exactly the deep confusion he’s feeling – the hurt and betrayal and utter disbelief as Alex points the gun at his head with no hesitation, a blank mask over his features. “Alex?” he calls out, counting it as a victory when his voice doesn’t quiver.
> 
> “I’ve got this covered,” Alex says, his words lacking the emotion that usually seeps through them. “It’s not as if this one can read minds.”
> 
> “I’ll be out while you take him down,” the other man acquiesces, a smug grin on his face making Michael want to puke. He doesn’t understand a thing as the man turns around and opens the door before saying, “I’ll remain close just in case. You never know, with this things.”
> 
> “It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of minutes,” Alex says coldly. “But I want to do it myself. And then bring this one to my father. I’m done with their manipulation.”
> 
> Alex doesn’t lower the gun like Michael has been expecting. They’re left alone, the door ajar and Michael can see the man’s shadow cast through the empty space.
> 
> “Alex,” he all but pleads. This has to be a nightmare; maybe he’s going to wake up soon enough and he’ll be still in bed, arm securely wrapped around Alex’s waist, and Michael’s going to hold on for dear life and never let go of Alex if this ends up being a bad dream.
> 
> Alex tilts his head to his right, gun still firmly in hand. “Good thing you can’t read minds,” he repeats, snarl in place. Michael blinks – it has to be code for something, but he just doesn’t understand. 
> 
> Until he does. And when it clicks, he wants to kick himself for not having been able to catch upon it the first time Alex said those words.
> 
> Before Max, Michael hadn’t been able to enter anyone’s thoughts, but things have changed ever since. Along with Isobel, he’s been playing with new powers, tip toeing on the edge of breaking down some energy they had locked up inside their DNA. He can’t keep the connection for long, but he can blast into Alex’s mind for the few moments it may take for the airman to explain what’s going on. He closes his eyes, inhales deeply, and plunges into the dark abyss that is the human psyche.
> 
> Finding Alex in the maelstrom that’s his shared mindspace is easy for Michael. Alex is shining in purples and pinks, bright enough even with all the darkness tainting his aura. Michael steps into the place where he’s supposed to meet Alex halfway and plants his feet firmly on the ethereal ground. “What’s going on, Alex?” he demands, because they’re running out of time.
> 
> “It was a trap,” Alex explains hurriedly. “They knew I was coming, they were waiting for me. We don’t have time, Michael. It was me or _him_ to take you down.”
> 
> “How many?” he asks. He can take a handful of enemies with his powers, but Alex is shaking his head _no_ even before Michael can finish that thought.
> 
> “They have enough powder to render you powerless and vivisect you,” he tries to convey all his pain in his words, but they’re sharing thoughts where they are, and Michael can feel all his fear. “There’s only one way to escape.”
> 
> “Which is?” Michael frowns. Alex’s concealing the true nature of his plan the best he can, and Michael’s having a hard time reading the signals. If they can’t take down however many Manes’ minions there are out there, he doesn’t know how they’re going to escape.
> 
> “You have to fight me. Punch me. Whatever it takes.”
> 
> “What?”
> 
> “You have to punch me. Hard,” Alex repeats. “There’s a window in the bathroom, you can escape the room from there, and use your powers to throw whatever you find in your way so no one can reach you. They believe I’ve turned on you. Your only way out of this is if you just flee from me.”
> 
> “I’m not hurting you,” Michael says stubbornly. “And I’m definitely _not_ leaving you behind. If your father thinks you’ve allowed me-”
> 
> “Which he wouldn’t-”
> 
> “-he will!” Michael screams in their heads. His heart is racing and he can feel Alex’s heartbeat thumping hard as well. “What do you think that’ll happen, Alex?”
> 
> “I can deal with him.”
> 
> “You don’t have to, anymore!”
> 
> “If you don’t do it, I’ll force you to fight me, Michael,” Alex insists. “You’re getting out of here. It’s not me I’m afraid they’ll cut up in half.”
> 
> “But I’m afraid of what they’ll do to you!”
> 
> “I can fight my own battles. I’ll win this one,” Alex promises. “Now, get out of my head and punch me as if I’m my father.”
> 
> Michael stumbles out of their shared mindspace, dizzy and drunk in fear. Alex is still in front of him, face completely closed off and eyes dull. Michael shakes his head – he’s not going to hurt Alex, not like this – but then Alex takes a step forward, throws a punch, and Michael’s gut reacts.
> 
> He fights back, biting and punching, seeing Jesse Manes and the hammer and the hatred and everything while Alex doesn’t really defend himself. Michael doesn’t really steps forward much as he’s retreating to the bathroom, leaving Alex with one bloody nose and a creaked brow. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, one leg outside the window leading to a back alley where, he hopes, nobody’s waiting for him.
> 
> “Don’t be,” Alex mutters back, aiming the gun again at him. “You’re family, Michael. Remember, I’ll never look away.” And then he fires, a few inches to Michael’s left, loud enough for the unknown man to be alerted and enter the room as Michael flees, hearing him spitting and swearing.
> 
> “Go after him!” 
> 
> But it’s too late, he’s already jumping onto car roofs and running for his life, leaving behind the only person to ever give him hope in humankind. He breaks into one random car he finds on the streets, using his powers to start it and fly away from the threat hot on his heels. As he drives crazily back into the main road, dust lifting in his wake, Michael realizes that the first time Alex has called him by his given name and not just _Guerin_ has been while mindwalking. A tear finally escapes his eyes, and the sky follows suite, storming down upon the highway as he finds his way home, alone and broken.
> 
> When he reaches Roswell, he drives wildly through the town and into the desert until he reaches the woods. Michael locks himself into the detox bunker below the cabin without being prompted to do so, his only aim to be as sober as possible as soon as possible so he can help bring Max back – so they can go take the Texas facility over and rescue Alex before he can burn the damned building to ashes with his mind. He manages it within a week, aided by his sheer stubbornness and the help of melodies he strums out of the guitar Maria gives him as her farewell gift. He spends the rest of his time plotting with Liz and Isobel about the best way to approach their newly found powers to bring Max to them so they can use his strength to collapse against a military facility holding hostage the only person who’s ever been home to Michael.
> 
> Two days into their research, nine since Michael came back from Texas, one car neither of them recognizes pulls up near the cabin, right side dented as though something big had collided against it, windshield blasted with what look like gunshots. Alex stumbles outside the vehicle, barely holding himself together as a streak of blood streams down from his hairline, crossing his face in a downward spiral. Valenti, who has been hiding in the cabin until the threat over his head passed, being closely watched over by one Jenna Cameron rescued from the ashes of her sister’s imprisonment, is the one to run towards Alex as the airman collapses on the ground, coughing and muttering nonsense about a car accident and an escape and gunfire and Jesse Manes, and all Michael can do is follow in Valenti’s steps and kneel next to where Alex is being turned around by the doctor, so they can assess his injuries. Alex is shivering when Michael allows himself to place a hand on his skin, fevered and sweaty. One look over to Valenti lets him know that Alex will make it out of this, but the head injury doesn’t look good.
> 
> “Inside the cabin,” Michael instructs while Valenti helps Alex to a standing position. Liz and Isobel are already inside, clearing up the living room, when the two of them all but drag Alex inside, barely conscious now that he’s free of the stress of driving back to the woods. There will be time for questions, Michael decides while Valenti produces his surgical items from a small, black bag he keeps at the cabin for emergencies, and starts sewing Alex after having cauterized the wound. Afterwards, they lay Alex on his bed, tucking him in while Liz prepares some tea in the kitchen and Isobel makes sure Alex will sleep dreamless by entering his already exhausted mind and leaving traces of walks in the sun and hand holding in her wake.
> 
> “You know, you need to talk to him,” Isobel tells him when he finally emerges from the room, where he’s been making sure Alex doesn’t wake up. His own cup of tea has gone cold, the light outside has dimmed. He doesn’t know how long he’s been in there, but Valenti, Cameron and Liz are nowhere to be seen, so maybe it’s late enough.
> 
> “What for?” he shakes his head as he picks up his mug and goes to the kitchen to spill it over the drain. “I managed to get him tortured over at that place.”
> 
> “You know that’s not how things went down,” Isobel tries to reason. “He saved you, so you could come back and save him.”
> 
> “Which I’ve failed to do spectacularly,” Michael grunts. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
> 
> “Maybe he’d like to know that things between you and Maria are over, Michael.”
> 
> He laughs humorlessly as he comes back to the living room. “That wouldn’t change anything, would it?”
> 
> “I think it would,” Isobel insists, standing up and lifting a hand to caress his cheek. Michael realizes she’s also wiping away tears he hasn’t known he’s been crying. “I think it doesn’t feel like a crash landing anymore, Michael, but you’re too afraid.”
> 
> “Of course I’m afraid!” he exclaims. “Look where this _thing_ has led us to! First Caulfield, then this-this disaster!”
> 
> “Michael,” Isobel calls his name softly. “Don’t let whatever fear you have destroy this. It’s been going on for so long, and to quote Max,” her voice breaks a bit, “if you could have fallen out of love by now, you would have.”
> 
> Michael nods at her, silent and shaken. She smiles sadly and drops her hand from his face. “Valenti said to call him when Alex wakes up. He’s got a double shift tonight at the hospital, so he couldn’t stay,” Isobel instructs him as she reaches for the door. “I’m heading home. Tomorrow’s going to be hell.”
> 
> “You bet,” Michael kisses her cheek and watches her as she gets into her car and drives away, leaving him alone with Alex Manes in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. 
> 
> Alex stays mostly out of it for the following two days, barely keeping his conscience as Michael takes turns with Valenti and Liz and Maria in taking care of him, while Isobel keeps watch at the mines. Michael spends his nights wiping away the sweat that breaks on Alex’s forehead in the wee hours of the morning, barely keeping himself together as he doesn't sleep more than a couple of hours for the eleventh day in a row. 
> 
> Jesse Manes’ body is found three days later, lying on a curb in a lonely road, right besides a Humvee turned upside down, as though he’s been forced out of the road. A quick investigation run by the Sheriff’s Department given that the road was not in military territory ends up with no one apprehended, and Jesse Manes in a coffin, ready to be buried.

The rain hits the wooden deck around them, splashing drops onto their bare toes, falling hard on the ground around the cabin. He doesn’t register any of the sounds around them, other than the soft moans and grunts from either Guerin’s throat or his own. He doesn’t really care which one they come from, really.

Alex is grinning when he pulls away for air, not ready to let go of Guerin but knowing that he needs to breathe as well. When he looks at those hazel eyes that hold the whole universe in their light, he's met with doubt and something he can't put a finger on. "What's wrong?" he asks, brows furrowed in confusion. "I thought-"

"We always end up the same," Guerin replies softly, pushing him at an arm's length. “I don’t want to do this like this anymore.”

Alex catches his breath as he looks down at Guerin. He swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. “If you mean-if you’re talking about _Maria_-”

“We’re over,” Guerin interrupts him. Alex frowns at the words. “Maria and I, we’re over. We’ve been over since almost the beginning.”

“You didn’t-”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when we rode to Texas,” Guerin keeps on. “I know I should have. I know I should have told you so many things, but I’m useless with words. They’re just-not my thing.”

“They’re not mine, either,” Alex mutters, hands still on Guerin’s arms, digging his nails into skin and breaking through it. He’s going to leave a mark, but right now he needs an anchor, something to hold on to, because he feels like he might be falling to the ground anytime. “I kicked him out onto the road,” Alex confesses between shivers, his words almost lost in the thunder surrounding them. “It was me or him, _Michael_, and I had to. I’ve-I killed my father.”

Alex is on the verge of crying, shivering with a cold that has nothing to do with the lowering temperature due to the storm. The events from the last days are finally taking its toll on him, not just physically but psychologically – suddenly his mind doesn’t stop replaying the torture, the beatings, the way his father sneered at him from his higher position as he ordered his subordinates to apply more pressure, to turn the electricity on his fingertips a notch up. He can see with his inner eye the moment he realized he would only have one chance at fleeing, and he had to choose wisely, and how he couldn’t so he seized the opportunity and knocked over one of the guards and ran throughout the facility because they had been dumb enough to leave him with his prosthetic on – his father deemed it important since the prosthetic was a good electricity transmitter. He can see with complete clarity the frenzy and the frantic drive through risky roads, and the moment he realized he was being chased by his father, hunted down like a predator would do with its prey. He remembers the Humvee hitting the right side of the car he’d stolen, the sheer terror when he realized he might not make it out alive like he’d promised, and then it all becomes hazy as he can’t recall whether he hit back or his father’s Humvee overturned on its own volition after a particularly nasty bump in the road.

He’ll never know.

“That’s the third time you’ve called me _Michael_,” is what comes as retaliation. Alex blinks back the tears and stares at the face looking back at him. “I might get used to it.”

“That’s all you’ve-nevermind.”

“Your father was a monster,” Guerin – _Michael_ – says warmly, running his hands up and down Alex’s arms. “Sooner or later, something like this would’ve happened. Valenti almost did it, but it’s only poetic justice that it happened while you were on watch.”

“Is that what you call being hunted down?”

“You were gone for nine days,” comes the faint reply, and it seems they’re having two different conversations. “You told me to hurt you, you forced me to flee, and then you came back all bloody and concussed and literally _fried_. I’d have killed him myself.”

Alex shakes his head. At the time, forcing Michael – never again _Guerin_ – to leave had sounded like the sensible idea. Alex could endure whatever his father put him through if he was certain that everyone else was safe and sound. It hadn’t occurred to him that there might be despair and fear at the other end of his bargain. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“Don’t be,” Guerin smiles sadly at him, pulling him in again. The rain hasn’t stopped falling, the wind making drops hit their bare feet and leave round marks on the wood, patterns of liquid seeping down to the very core of the cabin. “We just need to work through all this miscommunication. Things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand if we’d talked more.”

“Like, for example, when you left me hanging at the junkyard to go kiss Maria?” Alex accuses, fingers digging deeper into skin.

“For example,” a chuckle ripples through and shakes Alex. “Or when you said it was over and left my bunker without telling me about the lost spaceship piece.”

“You know about that?” Alex feels his heart beating in tune with the staccato the rain is playing against their bodies.

“Where do you think that fancy mug came from?” Guerin – and it’s going to take Alex a while to switch to _Michael_ – nods to the mentioned household item. “I’m not building a ship anymore, Alex.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no use in searching for a home that’s not in the stars,” and Alex could kiss him senseless right now, after what sounds like the best declaration of love and forever he’ll ever get. He presses himself impossibly closer, wanting to fuse into Guerin’s heated skin. He feels a kiss dropped on top of his head, sweaty and cold and damp from the rain splashing now freely around them, the wild wind having turned the roofed deck into a painting of splashed myriads of endless rainbows as the sun strives to rise through the clouds in the horizon.

“You’re my home too,” he says, barely above a whisper, but he knows Guerin feels his words carved in his skin rather than hears them. He kisses a spot over Guerin’s collarbone, right where he can feel the pulse running wild under his lips. 

“You weren’t lying when you said I was your family,” Guerin states, a small smile pressed against Alex’s skull. “You are mine, too.”

They remain up and swaying a little under the rain washing away the pain and the guilt, and all the moments that they didn’t trust each other with a truth that would have saved them so much ache. Alex can feel the tension leaving his shoulders, flying away in rivulets of rain as he allows himself to just _feel_, until he can’t ignore the nagging issue that’s threatening to steal his breath away again, and not in the best of ways.

“There are still so many things to get through, so much of Project Shepherd to break through,” Alex whispers against Guerin’s – _Michael’s_ – skin as he’s being held close to his heartbeat. “So many loopholes, so many people involved.”

“We’ll take them down together,” Michael promises, and he’s never going to be _Guerin_ again, not if Alex can help it, because that’s a name from a past that’s never coming back – a name attached to a mangled hand and a hammer and a promise of pain and grief. They only have a future now, if they’re brave enough to take the leap of faith and work past all the dents in their souls, left by decades of abuse and misunderstanding. 

“Promise?”

“Promise.” Michael squeezes him even closer, tighter, and Alex doesn’t want to let go. Ever. “I’m never looking away, ever again.”

Michael leads him back into the cabin with a little help of his powers to keep him upstanding, iridescent mug and wooden guitar forgotten on the deck as they make their way to the bedroom. The rain slows down and the thunder and lightning all but disappear as he undresses Alex reverently, kissing every patch of skin he finds on his way, showering Alex with a love that he’s only dared to imagine before, but that has always been there. There’s no place for doubt or hesitation in the way Michael helps him gently onto the bed, covering Alex’s body with his own in an attempt to show him just how much he deserves to be taken care of. Alex gets lost in the feeling of hands on his skin and emotions in his head as they are still linked somehow, but he’s not going to complain because, with an indescribable need, he craves _Michael_.


End file.
